One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."

Friday, September 25, 2015

This post constructively lays out one of the overarching events of our time presented by this blogger’s all-time favorite Asia correspondent, Pepe Escobar, who may look like a hippy but has the smarts of a modern Sherlock Holms. The subjects of this essay in order of their taking place are (1) the continued slaughtering of innocents in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East by the murderous ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, resulting in hundreds of thousands dispossessed individuals and families looking for salvation in Europe, (2) the neocons in Washington have been arming, aiding, and abetting this slaughter in order to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad, in order to make Syria another U.S. vassal, (3) Pepe’s question is whether or not Obama will finally decide to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, either this Friday or during the UN General Assembly in New York next week, (4) Russia's game changer in Syria includes not only weapons delivery but also actual intervention by the Russian Air Force to fight ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and the Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. Al-Qaeda in Syria. (5) There is a growing European appreciation of such a Russian initiative, and (6) finally, for what it is worth, some of the blogger’s best friends are Russians. (Be sure to play the video near the bottom.)

It's the ultimate geopolitical cliffhanger of the season:
will US President Barack Obama finally decide to meet Russian President
Vladimir Putin, either this Friday or during the UN General Assembly
next week in New York?

Russia's game changer in
Syria -- not only weapons delivery but also the prospect of actual
intervention by the Russian Air Force -- has left the Beltway reeling.

Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Walled Muallem has made it clear to RT that direct Russian involvement in the fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and those "moderates" (US neocon designation) of Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. Al-Qaeda in Syria, is even more important than the arms delivery.

Washington, meanwhile, remains mired in a geopolitical black hole as
far as Putin's strategy is concerned. The Obama administration's
response will hinge on how Putin's speech at the UN will be received
across the world, and how the frantic diplomacy related to the Syrian
theatre of war will fare.

It's naive to interpret the Russian military
build-up as a mere show of force, an invitation to the Americans to
finally sit down and discuss everything from southwest Asia to Ukraine.

It's also naive to interpret the move as Moscow's desperation for
some kind of dialogue, any dialogue. There are no illusions at the
Kremlin. Obama and Putin exchanged a few words in Beijing late last year
-- and that's it; no official visits, no detailed meetings.

What's certain is that Putin's latest chess move carries the
potential to smash to pieces the Obama administration's post-Maidan "strategy" of isolating Russia. Thus the predictable fear, loathing and paranoia permeating the Beltway.

Old Cold War 2.0 habits die hard -- if at all. Washington may extend the proverbial "financial support"
to failed state, bankrupt Ukraine, and the pressure over the EU to keep
sanctions throughout 2016 will remain. US "Think Tankland" keeps
frantically spinning that the Obama administration is "not ready" to deal with Russia.

Well, at least the White House and the State Department seem to have
finally understood that those Sukhois and surface-to-air missiles now in
Syria are there to protect the Latakia air base. It was up to the
Pentagon to elucidate a clueless John Kerry; these are for "force protection."

The new batch includes 4 Su-30SM multirole combat jets; 12 Su-25
ground attack jets; 12 Su-24M attack fighters; and six possible Ka-52
attack helicopters. According to IHS Jane's, these provide "a
significant capability to target rebels opposed to the Syrian government
and to secure the Latakia homeland of President Bashar al-Assad."

The elucidation came after Pentagon supremo Ash Carter and Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held a 50-minute phone talk. The fact
that this was their first phoner in more than a year tells everything
one needs to know about the Obama administration's "diplomatic" skills.

Inevitably, Kerry had to change his tune; the weapons do not raise "serious questions"
anymore. Now Kerry is essentially saying Moscow has the right to
turbo-charge its peace-for-Syria drive, and the White House is not fussy
about Assad's departure date anymore, as long as there is a "transition."

Watch the chessboard

Putin is bound to deliver a showstopper
at the UN. Spare a thought for the Obama administration's foreign policy
"muppets," including the neocon cell at the State Department. Putin,
under the glare of global public opinion, will frame the absolute defeat
of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh as the key geopolitical issue of these times; he
will commit Russia to it; and he will propose for the "West" to join in.

Scenario 1: Washington and its EU minions decide to
support the Russian drive, or at least have the US-led coalition of
dodgy opportunists work side-by-side with Russia -- and Iran. This means
helping Damascus to win a real war against ("Caliphate") terror. "Assad must go"
may even go afterwards. But he'll go as a winner. The Obama
administration -- as well as Sultan Erdogan, Qatar, the House of Saud --
will be held responsible all across the world for prolonging a tragedy
that could have been resolved in 2012. And Russia will be recognized as
the ultimate defender of civilization against barbarism.

Scenario 2: Washington and the EU minions refuse to
act side-by-side with Russia, and continue relying on the appalling
performance of the coalition of the dodgy opportunists -- for instance,
as in Erdogan bombing Kurds and not ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, and the French
staging puny airstrikes invoking "self-defense" (I'm not making this up;
it's the official Elysee Palace version.) The whole world will
interpret it for what it is; the NATO-GCC combo is not really interested
in smashing the Salafi-jihadis. Imagine the cataclysmic
diplomatic/geopolitical fallout of five years of NATO-GCC enabling
hardcore jihadis.

And there's of course the coda; if the Syrian Arab Army/Russian
military push against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh works, guess who'll take the
credit.

So Putin wins on both scenarios. Forget about the relentless
demonization, the new Hitler-Stalin memes. "Putin The Great" will be no
less than a Slavic Perseus -- the slayer of the jihadi Medusa.

The great power is back

But there's more, much more. Whatever
the scenario -- 1 or 2 -- Putin is simultaneously masterminding a
Ukraine endgame, which involves the end of sanctions, probably by 2017.
The nations that really count in the EU want to scrap them. And scrap
them they will if Putin does what they can't possibly do; smash the
"Caliphate" that is sending wave after wave of refugees towards Fortress
Europe.

Here
I examined how any possible peace in Syria will be Putin's fault. Now
imagine the consequences. Russia back as the real indispensable nation
-- in the Middle East and beyond. And Russia back as a great power --
period.

Some signs of intelligent life in the EU can see it coming. Enter
Helene Carrere d'Encausse, Russia-expert historian and member of the
venerable Academie Francaise since 1990, of which she's the perpetual
secretary. Madame d'Encausse clearly understands how Putin sees himself
as the heir of Peter The Great; a great modernizer.

And even as he recognizes Europe is not the center of the world
anymore, Putin is not an adversary of Europe. Nevertheless, he firmly
believes that for the Americans and Europeans, Russia is a country that
can be treated with disdain. That must be imperatively reversed.

"Putin The Great's" project is to make Russia regain its status of a
great power. When he was elected to the presidency in 2000 -- I remember
it well, I was in Moscow covering it -- Russia was in total chaos,
perpetrated by unbridled neoliberalism. Putin got Russia back on track.

What he wants most of all -- contrary to superficial drivel reigning
in US "Think Tankland" -- is not to remake the Russian or Soviet empire;
but to get rid for good the humiliation of the 1990s -- the decade of
plundering -- and make the nation proud again. Just check his popularity
level; 85 percent of Russians -- and counting -- agree.

Madame
d'Encausse refers back historically to Count Sergey Uvarov, the
imperial statesman behind Tsar Nicholas I, who defined the doxa in
Russia in the mid 19th century as "orthodoxy, autocracy and national genius." She emphasizes this is the heart of Putin's ideology.

National genius, in this context, refers to a sense of social justice
and a very Russian spirit of solidarity. Putin always emphasizes this
spirit, which is an essential component of what it means to be Russian.
And it is all tied up with nationalism. We just need to re-read
Dostoevsky, for whom "the Russian nation is an extraordinary phenomenon in the history of human genius."

And then, of course, there's Islam -- an immensely complicating factor. There
are over 20 million Muslims in Russia. Putin recognizes that Russia is
also a Muslim state; it's in fact multi-confessional, and most Russian
Muslims are Sunnis. Putin clearly identifies ISIS/ISIL/Daesh as a Sunni
crusade against Shi'ites. At the same time he maintains very good
relations with Shi'ite Iran and the Allawites in Syria. And he realizes
that Sunni republics, former Russian and Soviet possessions, are at the
gates of Russia.https://youtu.be/U59AzhFvTrAPublished on Sep 11, 2015

So Putin has to continue analyzing Islam by taking into account both
internal and foreign policy. What he clearly identified is that a
Salafi-jihadi "Sunnistan" in "Syraq" is a very serious threat to
Russia's national security. Aleppo is virtually next door to Grozny.
Sure, "Putin The Great" harbors great ambition.

But first things first; he cannot possibly allow the resurgent great
power to be infiltrated and corroded by Western-enabled barbarians at
the gate.

No comments:

About Me

B.S. in Physics, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1960 Ph.D. in Physics, Brown University, 1966. Fellow, American Physical
Society. Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Fellow, American Ceramic Society. Member, Geological Society of America, Research Physicist at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC,
1967-2001. Fulbright-García Robles Fellow at Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 1997. Invited Professor of Research at Universités
de Paris-6 & 7, Lyon-1, et St-Etienne (France) and Tokyo Institute
of Technology, 2000-2004. Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and
Engineering, University of Arizona, 2004-2005. Consultancy: impactGlass
research international, 2005-present.
Winner, one national and two international research awards and honored
by Brown University with a "Distinguished Graduate School Alumnus
Award." Author, 198 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, Principal Author of 114 of these.